Veganism: History, Contemporary Views, and Common ObjectionsArticles Reflecting a Vegan Lifestyle From All-Creatures.org

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Veganism as a general philosophy of animal ethics refers to the
practice of not eating, wearing or using any animal products, or
participating in or supporting any animal exploitation, to the extent
practicable. This entry will discuss the history of veganism and its general
conceptual position, and then discuss contemporary views about veganism and
some common objections to veganism.

This brief essay, translated into Spanish, will be included in the new
edition of the Diccionario de Filosophía (J. Ferrater Mora)...

VEGANISM. Veganism, as a matter of diet that may reflect broader ethical
concerns, refers to the practice of not consuming meat, fish, dairy, eggs,
and other foods, such as honey. Veganism as a general philosophy of animal
ethics refers to the practice of not eating, wearing or using any animal
products, or participating in or supporting any animal exploitation, to the
extent practicable. This entry will discuss the history of veganism and its
general conceptual position, and then discuss contemporary views about
veganism and some common objections to veganism.

History: Although the word “vegan” was not coined until 1944, the idea of
abjuring dairy and eggs, in addition to animal flesh, can be traced back at
least 35 years earlier in Great Britain (and even earlier if one considers
Lewis Gompertz (1783/84—1861), a vegan who was a founding member of what
later became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).
Starting in 1909, some within the British Vegetarian Society, which had
formed in 1847, began to question whether, on grounds of morality and, to a
lesser degree, health, a rejection of flesh foods could be reconciled with
the continued consumption of dairy and eggs. The debate continued on and off
from 1909 until 1944 when the Vegetarian Society declined a request to
devote a section of its magazine, The Vegetarian Messenger, to those within
the Society who rejected dairy and eggs.

In 1944, Donald Watson, who had been Secretary of the Leicester
Vegetarian Society, and several other vegetarians decided to start a
group—The Vegan Society—to oppose the consumption of dairy and eggs. The
group tentatively used the word “vegan,” which Watson later stated
represented the beginning (“veg”) and end (“an”) of “vegetarian,” reflecting
that veganism was the natural end point of a vegetarian diet. They continued
to use “vegan.” The group started a quarterly magazine called The Vegan
News, which later became The Vegan.

The early vegans believed that their diet was not only sustainable, but
was more healthy than one that included dairy or eggs. It was, however,
clear that they were also motivated by at least three ethical concerns.
First, they were concerned about the effect that eating animals had on the
moral and spiritual development of humans. In the first issue of The Vegan
News, Watson and his colleagues explained that vegetarianism “is but a
half-way house between flesh-eating and a truly humane, civilised diet, and
we think, therefore, that during our life on earth we should try to evolve”
to a diet that excludes all animal products. They claimed to “suspect that
the great impediment to man’s moral development may be that he is a parasite
of lower forms of animal life” and expressed the view that “the spiritual
destiny of man is such that in time he will view with abhorrence the idea
that men once fed on the products of animals’ bodies.”

Second, the vegans, like the vegetarians, were concerned about the
killing and cruelty inherent in the production of animal foods. Vegetarians
abjured meat because animals had to be killed in order to be eaten. But, the
vegans argued, dairy involved killing the male calves born to dairy cows,
who were themselves killed after their milk production slowed. Moreover, the
separation of dairy cows from their calves itself caused tremendous distress
to both mother and baby. Egg production required the killing of the male
chicks, and of the hens themselves after they became less productive. The
battery system was just beginning to appear in Britain in the mid-1940s and
intensification supported the cruelty argument.

Third, and perhaps most interestingly, vegans from the outset expressed a
general concern about the exploitation of animals that went beyond the cruel
treatment and slaughter of animals and that rejected animal use altogether.
In 1944, The Vegan Society recognized that “our present civilisation is
built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built
on the exploitation of slaves.” In 1945, the Society stated, in the context
of rejecting all animal use, including for honey: “The object of The Vegan
Society is to oppose the exploitation of sentient life whether it is
profitable to do so or not.” They maintained that the mutilation and
slaughter of animals “presents us with a grave responsibility, for morally
there seems to be no difference between such behaviour and similar behaviour
to human beings.”

In 1949, Leslie J. Cross, an early and influential vice-president of The
Vegan Society, wrote that veganism was about “the abolition of the
exploitation of animals by man” and offered a definition of veganism: “the
principle of the emancipation of the animals from exploitation by man.” He
made clear that “emancipation” meant the end of domestication. He argued
that animals had “rights relatively equal to” human rights and said that all
animal exploitation per se, irrespective of treatment, violated those
rights.

In 1950, The Vegan Society pledged “to seek to end the use of animals by
man for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection, and all other uses
involving exploitation of animal life by man.” Cross wrote that “[o]ur aim
is not to make the present relationship between man and animal (which if
honestly viewed is mostly one of master and slave) more tolerable, but to
abolish it . . . .”

In 1979, when The Vegan Society became a registered charity, it adopted
as a definition of veganism: “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to
exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of,
and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose . . . . In
dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products
derived wholly or partly from animals.”

Although there were certainly strains of dissent and disagreement within
the early vegan movement, it is clear that, in certain respects, it
anticipated the animal rights movement by several decades in that at least
some of the key vegan pioneers were calling for the elimination of all
animal exploitation. They were promoting veganism not merely as a diet and
as a way of reducing cruelty to animals, but as a clear and unequivocal
moral imperative reflecting the abolition of all animal exploitation in
one’s life and as a necessary part of abolishing animal use by society.

Contemporary views: In the 1970s and 1980s, the animal rights movement
emerged in the West and challenged the animal welfare movement, which
accepted the use of animals by humans, but which promoted more “humane”
treatment. The early rights movement embraced the idea of abolition, but, by
the mid-1990s, had taken the position that, although abolition was the goal,
welfare reform and conventional advocacy were appropriate means to achieve
that goal. This position was taken by all of the large corporate charities
in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, and was explicitly promoted
even by rights theorist Tom Regan.

Although veganism as a moral imperative was promoted by at least some
segments of the early animal rights movement that embraced abolition, the
contemporary animal movement can no longer be characterized as a
rights/abolitionist movement and is dominated by the utilitarian thinking of
Peter Singer. Singer, who claims to be a “flexible vegan,” promotes dietary
veganism as a way of reducing suffering and not as a moral imperative. None
of the large corporate charities in the United States or Europe promotes
veganism as a moral imperative. Many of these groups, like Singer, promote
dietary veganism as a way of reducing suffering, along with other measures
that supposedly reduce suffering, including reduced consumption, the
consumption of what they claim is more “humanely” produced animal food, etc.
Even The Vegan Society has, in recent years, taken positions that are
actually hostile to veganism as a moral imperative. Many of the more
traditional animal welfare groups do not promote veganism at all.

Dietary veganism is also promoted as a way of achieving or improving
human health. There is no evidence that animal foods are needed for optimal
human health and an increasing number of mainstream medical and health
authorities maintain that animal foods are detrimental to human health.
Given that animal agriculture accounts for more greenhouse gases than does
the burning of fossil fuel for transportation purposes, and possibly at
least as much as 51% of all greenhouses gases, some argue for dietary
veganism as a way of addressing environmental issues.

There is a grassroots abolitionist movement, which maintains that
veganism is a matter of justice and reflects a moral imperative that we not
eat, wear or otherwise use animals for human purposes. The abolitionist
movement promotes the idea that the goal is to end animal use, including
domestication, and not to make animal exploitation more “humane.” This
movement also embraces the principle of nonviolence, and maintains that the
rejection of animal exploitation is part of a struggle to reject all forms
of objectification and discrimination, including those directed at humans.

It should be noted that veganism was a primary focus of two conferences
organized in 1990 and 1991 by José Ferrater Mora at Universidad Complutense
de Madrid.

Arguments against Veganism: In addition to arguments based on health,
which were debunked long ago but which continue to have considerable force,
and the argument that animals simply do not matter morally, which is a
position that is denied even by conventional morality, there are two primary
arguments against veganism.

The first is that, because all human activity, including growing crops to
produce food or to use in the manufacture of clothing, results in harm to
animals through cultivation and processing, we cannot abolish animal
exploitation and, therefore, veganism is an impossible ideal. That argument
fails for the same reason that we would not argue that, because we cannot
eliminate all unintended and incidental injury to human beings, the
abolition of slavery or the prohibition of murder is an impossible ideal.
Such an argument ignores that completely excluding beings—human or
animals—from the moral community by treating them as things that have no
inherent or intrinsic value is qualitatively different from unintentional
and incidental harm that may result to those beings. Building a road that we
will know will result in traffic deaths is not the same as enslaving humans
or murdering them.

The second argument is that the world will not go vegan overnight so
advocacy of welfare reform, reduced consumption, etc., is a practical
necessity. That argument fails for the same reason that we would never
promote similar arguments in the context of fundamental human rights
violations. For example, the world is not going to stop engaging is
misogynistic violence against women overnight but we would not promote
“humane rape,” or “reduced rape.” Such an argument, applied to animals, begs
the question against the inherent value of animals and of their right not to
be exploited as commodities.

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